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Monday
26Jan2009

Will Smith Says Spielberg's 'Oldboy' Will Be "Stunning"

DateMonday, January 26, 2009 at 11:27PM
I have no idea what attracted Steven Spielberg to Oldboy. I haven't read the manga comic, but I've seen the movie, and there's very little about it that screams "Guy who made E.T." Now, Spielberg, like a lot of great artists, has explored some darker elements of humanity over the past 15 years or so in particular. Schindler, Private Ryan, and Munich are certainly not cotton candy at the fair.

But Oldboy goes even further than those films in a lot of ways, or at least the film version does. The story centers on a man kept locked up in a hotel room for 15 years for reasons he does not know, and then he's suddenly released and told he has five days to find his captor. Pain and bloodshed ensue.

Not typical Spielberg. And when you throw in the name Will Smith as the star...well now I'm perplexed. Howzit gonna work? Discussing the project with MTV, Smith says the ultra-violence is "the thing that Steven was attracted to."

"We’re working from the comic and we haven’t done anything other than talk about it," adds Smith. "We’ll see what happens, but he’s not going to do anything that would be less than stunning.”

Uhh...Spielberg directed the last Indiana Jones movie, right? So didn't he just do something that was less than stunning? I'm a Spielberg fan, I'm a Smith fan, and I'm an Oldboy fan, so I hope the director finds a way into the story that works for all three of those elements.

But it might be even harder than it sounds.

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AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment1 Comment |

Reader Comments (1)

Having seen OldBoy, I'm not sure if it's a storyline I can (or want to?) envision Smith playing.... not to give anything away, but speaking as far as the plot/ending....

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterJosh

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